


TB

by deepfriedmoonpie



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Death, Illness, M/M, lots of talking, terrible realizations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:52:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepfriedmoonpie/pseuds/deepfriedmoonpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abel learns some terrible things about "the cause" at the expense of a comrade's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	TB

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago as part of my own original gay space adventure story, which is how I found Starfighter and all you lovely people (hooray!), but it has since gone in a very different direction. Rather than waste this scene I adapted it for Starfighter fic. It might be slightly OOC, but I don't really think so.
> 
> Rough and unedited. LIKE ME.
> 
> Enjoy.

The door hissed open and if Cain was surprised to see Encke standing on the other side he didn’t show it. Cain was the master of deception when he wanted to be. He leaned against the doorway with his elbow, casually blocking Encke from entering.

“What do you want?” he rumbled rudely.

Encke didn’t answer, but looked over Cain’s shoulder to Abel. “Keeler wants to see you,” he said.

Abel started in surprise, but stood, nodding, and made to duck his way under Cain’s arm, wondering briefly if Cain would move to stop him. When he didn’t, he looked back curiously but was only met with Cain’s strangely neutral expression.

“Be back before lights out,” he commanded, and punched the panel to close the door.

Abel watched as the door hissed shut again, frowning slightly as he mulled over the implications of Cain’s acquiescence. It wasn’t like him to let Abel out of his sight without a fight, especially with someone like Encke or Keeler, but perhaps their higher rank stymied any protest. He was sure he’d catch hell for it when he returned, however.

Encke interrupted his thoughts by starting down the dim corridor toward what he assumed was sick bay. He’d heard about Keeler’s collapse earlier that day and true to societal form, the rumors burned through the Sleipnir like wildfire. He looked up at the strangely stoic man.

“How is he?” Abel asked him after a tense moment.

“Dying.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No one did.”

“You did, though.”

Encke glanced down at him and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“How did…what..”

“Tuberculosis.”

Abel shot him a wild look, shocked. “But I thought tuberculosis had been eradicated almost three hund-”

“On Earth,” Encke cut him off, the name of Abel’s home planet spat from his lips like poison. “Every Earth child is vaccinated against tuberculosis at birth. I’ll bet you didn’t know that.”

Abel shook his head. He just assumed that all the diseases that the government had spent so much time and effort on scrubbing out of humanity, like tuberculosis or HIV or cancer, were extinct - gone the way of the dinosaurs, never to live and kill again. It had been centuries since anyone on Earth had even spoken the word “tuberculosis” outside of a history lecture, let alone died from it. “But Keeler’s from Earth,” he pointed out.

“He wasn’t born there. His parents were missionaries stationed at some backwater colony at the edge of the Known. Vaccinations don’t exist there. He most likely caught it from one of the many dying that his parents were trying to pray to health.”

“Do…do you have it?”

“No. Fleet Colonials are screened and vaccinated before enlistment. It’s impossible for anyone else out here to be infected.”

Abel released a sigh of relief that he didn’t know he was holding, silently thankful to the government for keeping the fighters - his fighter - safe.

“Didn’t they screen Keeler when they found out where he was born?”

Encke shook his head. “He’d already been back on Earth for years before he enlisted and his background was somehow overlooked. The officials were probably too excited about his test scores to notice. The highest in Fleet history,” Encke added with what Abel thought sounded like pride. His face immediately fell, however, as he continued. “They didn’t catch their mistake until Keeler was already coughing up blood, but by then it was too late. He was too sick.”

“But what about treatment?”

“It stopped working six months ago. Tuberculosis is an insidious disease, Abel. It can go years undetected, lurking, waiting for an opportunity to rear its ugly head and when it finally does, it’s often too late to beat it back. Sometimes drugs work for a while, but they always eventually stop being effective.”

“How do you know so much about this?”

“I was a doctor in the Colonies. I had a lot of experience dealing with patients with Keeler’s particular strain.”

“That’s why you were partnered,” Abel mused. “So you could care for him.”

“Yes.”

“But..surely they’re working on a cure.”

Encke shook his head sadly. “No one wants to waste money on a worthless colony and one navigator,” he said quietly.

They suddenly stopped outside a nondescript, windowless door lit only by a single overhead lamp. Abel didn’t recognize the area and he had been so engrossed in their conversation that he failed to pay attention to how they got there. It didn’t look like sick bay…at least not the sick bay he knew. Quarantine. A secret. Shame.

Encke nodded toward the door. “Keeler’s inside.”

Abel placed his hand on the control panel, but stopped short of pressing the button as something came to him.

“Encke, why are you a fighter and not a Fleet doctor?”

His question apparently took Encke by surprise, as the other man gave him a puzzled look. “A Colonial doctor in Fleet?” he asked. Was that amusement Abel detected? “Have you ever seen one?”

Abel thought a moment, and to his amazement he realized that no, he had never seen a Colonial doctor or medic - or any Colonial in a position of power, other than among the fighters and maintenance staff. His jaw dropped a little as the ugly implication struck him in the heart: this wasn’t just a war with the Colterons - this was a class war, too.

“Go,” Encke prodded gently. “But please be brief. Let him say his piece and leave him to rest. I’ll wait here to escort you back.”

Abel swallowed, his throat suddenly thick and sore, filled with despair not just for Keeler but for all the Colonials trapped under the government’s cold and uncaring thumb. He thought he finally understood something important about Cain, but he would think more about that later. He looked at Encke one last time and nodded, then opened the door.

The room was small and white, and aside from the drain in the center of the floor and the door behind him there was nothing to distinguish one surface from another. Cold. Clinical. Alliance. A white clad medic looked up from tending to one of the many tubes leading from the quietly beeping and flashing machinery to Keeler’s delicate form and nodded his acknowledgement, gesturing to a small chair on the other side of the bed. Abel approached slowly, unsure and afraid, unable to make out Keeler’s features in the dim light.

“Only a few minutes,” the attendant murmured and made one last adjustment to something Abel couldn’t see and silently left. Like a ghost.

He lowered himself into the chair, eyes slowly adjusting to the light, and was shocked at how small and frail Keeler now seemed when just a few days ago he was tall, vibrant and alive. His eyes were closed - asleep? - his features strangely sunken, skin tight and pallid. His long fair hair was gone, probably shorn close for ease of care or to relieve fever or whatever other reason Abel thought he might have seen in the movies. He followed the line of Keeler’s neck to his shoulder and down his skinny probe-covered arm, alarmingly aware at how gaunt the navigator had become in such a short time. He didn’t look the same. It was then that he noticed his breathing - raspy, thick and grasping, chest rising and falling with difficulty. The sound was unlike anything he had heard before. It frightened him.

“Abel,” Keeler breathed suddenly. “Thank you for coming.” He opened his eyes and peered at him sidelong from his prone position on the bed, smiling a little, unmoving. “You’ll pardon me if I don’t get up.”

Abel allowed himself to smile in return, relieved that Keeler was still as polite and good-natured as ever. Still himself.

“Listen carefully,” he rasped, the smile disappearing. “Beware Bering. He has your fighter-” a cough suddenly racked his body, wet and wheezy as the equipment off to the side loudly screeched their warnings. Terrified, Abel didn’t know what to do, but to his relief the medic opened the door and popped his head in, concern etched across his generic Earther face. That thought surprised him - since when had he begun to consider his countrymen generic? The racket made by the equipment subsided with Keeler’s cough, and he relaxed, emergency over. He managed a small shake of his head, and the medic frowned, reluctantly closing the door again.

“Your fighter,” Keeler continued, quieter than before, his eyes closed, “is on a special mission for Bering. I don’t know what it is. Be careful.”

Abel wasn’t surprised. Wasn’t he on a special mission, too? He and Keeler had been working on new engine configurations together for months, often staying late to run diagnostics or discuss new theories. He knew Cain’s schedule well enough to know when he was off doing something extra and never questioned it since he was usually doing something extra himself. At this point he figured everyone was working on some kind of special mission.

Keeler opened his fevered eyes and turned his head just enough to fix him with a strangely intense stare. “Be careful,” he intoned more forcefully before another, more powerful cough gripped him.

The instruments began to shriek and the medic flew in, checking pulses and data and trying to soothe the convulsing Keeler. Abel jumped up, panicked and frantically glanced toward the door where he spied Encke standing just inside, a stricken look on his face.

“Go,” the medic commanded as he clutched Keeler to him, and Abel didn’t need to be told twice. He fled the room like a coward and closed the door behind him.

The corridor outside was starkly quiet compared to the chaos inside the room and in his head. It was a relief, but unnerving. He wasn’t sure his nerves would ever be the same after that. He leaned against the cool dark wall and slid down to the floor, emotionally exhausted, too tired to cry, his thoughts in tumult. One thing rang clear, however: Keeler was dying. Really dying. He had never known anyone who had died, never had to face that once abstract idea and now came to a startling conclusion: everyone could die. If a disease could take down one of the strongest and most respected members of Fleet there was no predicting what the Colterons could do. Anyone could die. He needed to redouble his efforts and do the best he could to prevent that from ever happening. He would not lose anyone else. Could not.

The door hissed open and Encke appeared, pale and shoulders hunched. He looked…haunted. Defeated. Abel stood and closed the door for him, waiting.

Encke closed his eyes and sucked in a breath, exhaling loudly. “Let’s go,” he said.

They didn’t speak on the way back to Abel’s quarters, meandering through the corridors slowly in uncomfortable silence. Abel didn’t like it; it left him alone with his thoughts, and he wondered if Encke needed someone to talk to. He was beginning to like and respect the tall, exotic looking fighter and he was concerned for him. They eventually wound their way to Abel’s door where he paused before opening it.

“You really care for him,” he said, the sudden thought escaping unbidden from his lips.

Encke looked down at him, his eyes glassy, puzzled once again. “All fighters care for their navigators,” he said simply, and left.

Abel stood there, thoughtful.

_Be careful._

He decided to heed Keeler’s advice and opened the door.

The next morning Abel received word that Keeler had died in the night, Encke by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. <3


End file.
